Magicide

by Carolyn V. Hamilton

  The security guard stepped back and one of the officers said, “We’re in!” Guns drawn in the ready position, they entered the room.

  “Whoa!” Pizzarelli exclaimed.

  Slumped on the couch, as if he had fallen asleep, was Edmund Meiner. His tie was askew and his suit jacket lay neatly folded next to him on the cushions of the couch. His gray eyes were wide open and his jaw was slack, his face ashen.

  Cheri put her fingers to the vein at his throat. “Call the coroner,” she said. “He’s had a heart attack—” Her eyes took in a rock glass at his feet that lay on its side, its contents spreading in a spill across the carpet, ice still melting. She peered more closely at Meiner’s mouth “—or he’s been poisoned.

  CHAPTER 60

  Saturday, August 13, 7:35 p.m.

  Outside the star dressing room the corridor was crowded with sequined and feathered dancers, exiting the stage after the completion of one of Robert the Great’s effects.

  Cheri caught the familiar backstage whif of deodorant mixed with perspiration. Though the door was only open for minutes, one of the girls spotted Meiner’s body on the couch and moved closer to the door, bumping a second girl as she did so.

  “Watch it,” the other dancer snapped. “Hey, isn’t that Maxwell’s coordinator?”

  Three other dancers stopped to peek into the room as Cheri stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind her. The girls turned away. As curious as they were, clearly nobody wanted to get involved.

  “Just great,” she said. “Now the news that Meiner’s dead in the dressing room will be all over backstage.”

  “Maybe they’ll think he’s just passed out,” one of the officers said.

  “Maybe, but dead’s more dramatic,” she said. “What would you think if you saw a woman wearing a badge and five suits coming out of a room in Vegas where a man looks dead on the couch?”

  “They’ll talk,” Pizzarelli agreed. “Let’s get Digbee now.” He was already headed back past the dressing room in the direction of the side curtain of the stage. “To hell with the-show-must-go-on.”

  They moved swiftly down the corridor to the door that led to the rear of stage. Stationed there was a bored security guard whose interest went up noticeably when they flashed their badges. He was smart enough to step aside without a word and open the door for them.

  They clambored up the metal stairs that led to the stage level. The lighting here was dim and around them she could just make out the distorted lines and shapes of stage furniture, elevator catwalks, rolling false walls and large show props. Banks of blue and pink lights directed a natural glow to center stage where Robert the Great had just finished the Sawing a Woman in Half effect. He was flourishing his cape and bowing to a cheering audience.

  The announcer’s voice boomed over the speakers:

  “And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Robert the Great will perform the most dangerous illusion in the world. An illusion that has resulted in the death of at least twenty-three magicians in the history of all who have attempted it. This is so dangerous that even the great Houdini, master of dangerous escapes, refused to perform it—but here tonight Robert the Great, the first magician in the twenty-first century to attempt it, will catch a real bullet fired directly at him from a real rifle.”

  Cheri moved forward out onto the stage, Pizzarelli right behind her. Blinding stage lights prevented her from seeing the faces in the audience.

  Digbee didn’t see them coming; it was as if he sensed their presence. He turned to face them, anger at the interruption stiffening his body.

  “Robert Digbee, you’re under arrest for the murder of Scott Liebold,” Pizzarelli announced.

  Cheri had moved behind Digbee and reached out to handcuff him. The magician made an abrupt turn, and his cape billowed down the sides from his shoulders. She suddenly found her hands lost in the voluminous fabric. The cape no longer attached to his body, he bolted toward the side wing.

  What happened next stopped Cheri cold. In the shadows he had grabbed someone and whirled to face them. He held his captive in front of his body, his arm tightened around the throat.

  Tom.

  Digbee held a knife at her son’s throat. She saw Tom off balance, his feet stumbling on the scarred wooden floor, his weight held by the older man’s controlling hold.

  “He comes with me or he dies,” Digbee hissed. “You’ll stay there and let us leave together.”

  “You can’t⎯” she began. Her thought, whatever it had been, froze in time.

  “Your choice!” he cried.

  Behind her Pizzarelli and the four officers had their weapons ready. “Let him go,” her voice croaked. Her eyes saw Tom’s body relax in Digbee’s hold, but her mind couldn’t process why.

  The magician, dragging Tom in front of him, backed toward the rear stage door that led into a back alley behind the Dunes Park. Members of the stage crew backed out of the way as he moved. If he makes it out the door, he’ll get away, she thought in panic. He could have a car back there, maybe a chauffeur waiting. Would he try to take Tom with him? Or slit his throat and leave him in the alley?

  She blinked and Tom’s hand flew up. A poof sound. A flash of searing fire leaped in front of the magician’s face. He cried out in surprise, momentarily blinded by flames and smoke. He stumbled backwards and lost his grip on Tom and dropped the knife.

  “Dragon’s Breath,” Tom yelled, breaking away from the stranglehold.

  Digbee’s hands flew to his eyes. “Sonofabitch!”

  He staggered and Pizzarelli was on him. Both men fell to the stage floor. “I’m blinded—” The magician’s sentence was cut short by the detective’s weight on his back, forcing his chest against the floor. Pizzarelli cuffed him as the stage manager came running from the wings.

  “Stop right there,” Cheri held one hand, badge displayed, palm up like a traffic cop, her other hand pointing her gun to the ceiling. The man halted, raised both hands and backed up several steps.

  Pizzarelli read Digbee his rights and the audience, which had seen the flash of fire and could not hear the words, applauded.

  CHAPTER 61

  Saturday, August 13, 9:05 p.m.

  Robert The Great was booked, photographed, fingerprinted. Then he was taken to interrogation room 2, where he sat at the table in his rumpled tux with his legs crossed and his arms folded.

  “He’s hardly moved,” the observing officer said when Lieutenant Washington arrived.

  The officer opened the door and Washington, Cheri and Pizzarelli entered the room. Digbee regarded them with a haughty sneer. “You realize you are going to be hit with a major lawsuit,” he announced. “Nobody⎯I mean nobody⎯interrupts my performance.”

  “Stow it,” Pizzarelli snapped. “You otta be less concerned about show business and more concerned about the murder, kidnapping and assault charges against you.”

  “I didn’t murder anybody.”

  Cheri said, “We know all about Maxwell’s spring solstice ceremony. The video evidence says you are at the very least an accessory to murder one.”

  The magician feigned an indignant posture. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Pizzarelli slapped his hand hard on the table. “Yeah, you do. You and Edmund Meiner picked up a poor homeless kid for Maxwell. You probably told the kid you could get him into show business. He needed money, so you paid him to participate in your little ceremony. Only he didn’t know he’d be the sacrifice.”

  “Meiner found the kid,” Digbee blurted. Then, suddenly realizing he might have made a mistake by speaking, his tone changed. “I want my lawyer. I won’t do anything without my lawyer.”

  “Oh, you’ll get a lawyer,” Cheri said. “But wouldn’t you like it to be easy? Just tell us what happened.”

  “Edmund Meiner will tell us everything if you don’t,” Pizzarelli said. “We found him in the green room, barely alive. He’s in ICU right now. We expect him to pull through.”

 
; Digbee’s face went pale as Scott Liebold’s in death, the color sickly against the grayness of the interrogation room, reminding Cheri of a gerbil Tom had had as a kid. They never knew what was wrong with it, but it wasted away to nothing. Tom insisted on keeping it until it began to decay and she had to take a firm stand.

  She couldn’t feel sorry for an old magician who’d committed an unspeakable atrocity.

  “It was an accident,” Digbee said in a numb voice.

  Pizzarelli circled the table, making no attempt to contain his anger. “Yeah, right. The knife just happened to fly out of Maxwell’s hand and slice out the kid’s heart⎯which then leaped all by itself into the bowl.”

  He had a pretty direct way of describing things, Cheri thought. But there it was. While the knife hadn’t been in Robert Digbee’s hand, his willing presence made him guilty of first-degree manslaughter.

  Digbee bowed his head and his shoulders shuddered. She thought he struggled not to cry.

  “So after the boy’s murder,” Pizzarelli continued, “you figured the best way to get out of it was to eliminate the other witnesses, right? That would be Meiner and Maxwell.”

  “And whoever held the camera,” she said. “Who held the camera? Who took the video?” Even though Peter had told them Dayan Franklyn held the video camera, she wanted to hear it from Digbee himself.

  His head jerked up, revealing wild eyes. His words came out as a loud stage whisper. “Not Maxwell. I didn’t murder Maxwell. Dayan Franklyn held the camera. And Digbee didn’t murder anybody, either. Nobody murdered Maxwell because he’s not dead.”

  CHAPTER 62

  Saturday, August 13, 9:20 p.m.

  His lawyer apparently forgotten, Digbee told everything about the taunting calls he’d received from Maxwell.

  He said Maxwell had heard from more than one reliable source that there would be a contract out on his life soon because he didn’t want to repay a loan. He had borrowed money to produce the roller coaster stunt and thought because he was the great Maxwell, he could get out of paying it back, but he had borrowed it from the wrong people.

  He couldn’t just walk way⎯he had to gloat over his “death” to everyone he felt had ever wronged him. He wasn’t coming back and didn’t care who got the blame.

  “So where is he?” Cheri asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Guess,” Washington said.

  “Best guess? Japan. He always liked it there. He especially liked submissive Japanese women.”

  Washington rolled his eyes. Pizzarelli placed both hands on the table and leaned towards Digbee. “And where’s Dayan Franklyn?”

  Suddenly everything made sense to Cheri. “It was Dayan Franklyn who performed the roller coaster stunt, wasn’t it? You were the technical coordinator. You helped Maxwell arrange it.”

  Digbee shuddered. The muscles across his cheekbones tightened in anger. “I taught Maxwell everything he knows. I made him great. But he wasn’t satisfied to be handsome and talented and rich. He had to steal the best from everybody else. He’d watch other magicians and incorporate their best work into his effects. He’d make promises he never intended to keep, and if he could get out of it, he never paid for anything.”

  “Edmund Meiner told us he promised Dayan Franklyn the world,” Cheri said quietly.

  Digbee’s nod was a hard exclamation. “He told Dayan that when the switch was revealed later, it would make Dayan a star on Maxwell’s level. He even gave Dayan his gold chain with the diamond M to wear for luck. Dayan believed every word of it. I had no say in the matter. And who knows? Maybe it would have gone that way.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

  “Because after the accident, Maxwell told me he didn’t want it to come out. He wanted everyone to think he was dead.” Digbee’s tone turned bitter. “He said if I revealed the truth, he’d make sure the DVD got to the police and Meiner and I would go down for murder.”

  “And Dayan had his own ambitions,” Pizzarelli prompted. “He gave the video to Peter because he couldn’t hide it in the mansion and he planned to blackmail Maxwell with it.” It was a logical guess.

  Digbee unfolded his arms and placed his hands in his lap. He smiled coldly. “Dayan couldn’t decide which he wanted more: to be a star, or to have Peter’s love and admiration. He hated the way Maxwell treated Peter. The irony of the whole thing is that Maxwell was about the only person⎯and maybe Larissa⎯who didn’t know about the affair between him and Peter. Until two weeks before the roller coaster escape.” Digbee paused. His chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh.

  “Is that when he approached you to murder Dayan?” she asked.

  “No!” Digbee’s response was without hesitation. “I had no idea he was planning that. It’s true I knew he and Dayan had had an argument and that Dayan had told him about Peter. Maxwell wasn’t thrilled, of course, but he was a professional. I never thought anything would distract him from a performance, especially as important as this one.”

  “So you’re telling us Maxwell switched the handcuffs?”

  “He was a master of disguises when he wanted to be, you know. Not many people knew that about him. He never used it as part of his act.”

  “So Maxwell could have been the waiter who brought the hamburgers to the committee just before the stunt,” Pizzarelli said.

  Digbee nodded. “That would be an easy one for him.” He raised his gaze to Cheri. “So what happens now?”

  “You get your phone call to your lawyer. You’ll be officially charged, most likely convicted, and spend the rest of your life in prison.”

  When she looked at his face she saw haunted eyes tinged with sadness.

  “My career’s been over for a long time. Even the shop holds no interest for me anymore. I don’t care what happens to me. Just find Maxwell and make him pay for what he’s done.”

  CHAPTER 63

  Sunday, August 14, 8:00 a.m.

  Cheri awoke later than usual. She’d only had a few hours sleep, yet she felt wide awake and alert. She rolled over, thinking about Larissa.

  How much longer could Larissa perform as a topless magicienne? Here she was in middle age, for all practical purposes, and the love of her life had turned out to be an A number one asshole who had probably provoked their son’s suicide.

  In her heart she knew this case would end, but would she ever be able to face Larissa again? What a sad mess.

  Her mind on a gerbil wheel around the Maxwell case, she decided to get up. She relived in Technicolor detail the previous evening’s events as she showered and threw on jeans and a clean tee shirt.

  When she entered the kitchen, Tom was at the microwave heating up a cup of milk to make hot chocolate.

  “Mornin’ Mom,” he said.

  “You’re up early.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.” He sounded especially cheery.

  Instead of heading straight for the coffee counter, she remained in the doorway. “You know we have unfinished business.”

  The look he gave her was pure teen-aged innocence. “What?” he asked.

  “About that flash pot—“

  “I know. I know.” Tom held up both hands in mock surrender. “It’s illegal for anyone under 18.”

  “You’ve put me in an awkward position. As your mother, I’m just incredibly relieved that you’re okay, though I feel angry that you got into that situation with Robert the Great in the first place.”

  The microwave chimed. Tom removed the cup and went to the counter where the chocolate tin lay open. “That was pretty cool, though, you have to admit,” he said. “Did you see the look on his face when the flames went off? Was he surprised, or what?”

  She expelled air from her mouth in astonishment. “He had a knife at your throat!”

  “Yeah, but still—Dragon’s Breath! What a trick. I-I wasn’t sure… but it worked really well.”

  Tom’s pride in successfully performing the effect seemed to have completely cancelled out his fear of dying at
the hand of Robert the Great.

  Kids! No matter what, they think they’re invincible. Cheri summoned her police voice. “As a law enforcement person, I have to advise you to get rid of that apparatus—”

  Before she could get out the rest of her official statement, he said, “Oh, Pizza wants you to call him.”

  She knew when she’d been effectively side-tracked. “He called? When?”

  “Half hour ago.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I yelled upstairs. Think you were in the shower.”

  She was already picking up the telephone from its wall cradle and dialing Pizzarelli’s number. Tom stirred his chocolate and retreated to the table to read the morning paper, as if nothing unusual had happened in their lives. As she listened to the rings she changed her mind and hung up. What she had to say had to be said now. “We have to talk about your father.”

  “Mmmm,” Tom said.

  She went to the table, pulled out a chair and sat down next to him. She put the flat of her hand on the paper under his nose and said, “You can read this later. I need to tell you about your father.”

  He looked at her and her heart constricted. His face questioned, but she thought she saw a glimmer of acceptance as well.

  “So, tell.”

  She took a deep breath. “You know Larissa and I were roommates when we were dancers, before you were born.”

  “Yeah, you said.”

  “Then she married Maxwell.” Images swirled in her head, images she needed to edit. She had to say this simply, with as little detail as possible. “She had a show out of town, and Maxwell invited me over one evening for dinner, and—well—one thing led to another… I had a lot to drink, but I know that’s no excuse.”